Human Rights & the Environment

LAW

818

Human Rights & the Environment

Human rights have been called "law's best response to profound, unthinkable, far-reaching moral transgressions." Climate Change may well pose the most profound social, legal and economic challenges that human societies will face in the 21st Century. This seminar poses the question of what international human rights law (and norms) might offer legislators and regulators grappling with climate change. We will examine the linkages between the two bodies of law, including the political and civil rights of environmental activists, the close relationship between a healthy environment and economic, social and cultural rights. We will consider this relationship in the context of environmental justice in the United States, indigenous rights around the world, and the practices of extractive industry that are so often connected to environmental and human rights abuses.Starting with the declarations, treaties and laws that form the foundation of international human rights law, this course will examine the emerging substantive and procedural norms coalescing around the putative human right to a healthy environment. Students will write independent research papers, and will present those papers in class. Students will develop familiarity with emerging discourses about development, corporate accountability and global justice movement.

Fall, Spring

Law

No